Thursday, October 1, 2015

Nothing about this story is especially surprising. Certain leftist
radicals have been beating people over the head about their sexism for decades
now. Lo and behold, real human beings, when they go on dating sites like OK
Cupid, present themselves in ways that are consistent with traditional gender
norms.

One Darin Hawley went through nearly 100,000 dating profiles
to see which words occurred most often when prospective daters described
themselves.

When
Hawley analyzed the words appearing more on male profiles than female ones, he
discovered an overwhelming use of terms describing professional occupations,
including “engineer,” “software,” “musician,” and “construction.” (“Ladies”
does, however, take the top spot.)

Conversely,
the words that appeared more on female profiles than male ones emphasized
appearance and personality traits, with far fewer professional terms cracking
the list. Instead, words like “girly,” “sassy,” and “curves,” dominated.
“Nurse” was the sole exception.

Note that both sexes are equally invested in gender norms. If I may I would recommend that young men not place too much emphasis on their "software."

The conclusion is fairly obvious:

Men, by
placing a profession at the forefront of their appeals, are seemingly
responding to the expectation that they can contribute financially to a
relationship, while women elect to highlight their looks and femininity. The
pattern in this data suggests that people, at a macro level, advertise
themselves in a way that still plays into long-held
societal norms—that women look for rich men with stable jobs and men for
beautiful women.

And also,

The
data also hints at the endurance of another norm—the belief that men’s work is
integral to their identities and women’s work is more of an ancillary
characteristic.

Could it be that this norm endures because it reflects
something basic about the difference between the sexes? Why do we imagine that
the history of human behavior is wrong, but that we, enlightened souls, are
right?

I close on one point that seems slightly unclear. The word
that appeared most often in men’s profiles was “ladies.”

I will make a leap of faith and say that these men were not
describing themselves as “ladies.” I suspect that they were trying to signify
what they were looking for in women. They seemed to value women who were
ladylike, who were not trainwrecks, who were not hookup queens, and who were
not ideologically driven feminists.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

It is not only calculation about income that makes women interested in men's occupations. Much of it is that male accomplishment is attractive in the visceral way that something like male height is. The common male use of "musician" especially supports this.

And vice versa: A man might be interested in a woman's occupation and income potential. His attraction for "feminine" or "girly" is something he feels in his guts.

It's symmetrical: Men have trouble understanding the attraction of occupational accomplishment for women, because they lack it. Women have trouble understanding men's lack of interests in their occupational achievements because they feel it attracting them to men.

I've heard the sudden interst in women's voices when I mention "guitar".